Forums - Banning Users

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John Cartwright
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Post by John Cartwright »

kettle_drum wrote:No what i ment was, the ban would be against the user. So when the user was logged in, he would see his posts - even though other people wouldnt - the stealth ban. But when the user logs out, or visits the forum from another computer, his posts would be missing and he would know he was banned, so it just seems a bit of a waste to store posts that only that person can see - they could even just completly spam the forum to fill up the database, and other people woud be unaware of it.
set a timestamp and delete the posts after a week?
Grim...
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Post by Grim... »

Then he'd definatly notice...
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Crashin
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Post by Crashin »

I had great fun implementing a "frog" ban once.. it basically doesn't do anything to the user other than make the entire forum appear in frog language.. (pretty much replace every single word with "ribbit"). Pointless, but amusing.
Ha! Beautiful! :lol:
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Crashin
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Post by Crashin »

Hmmm...

Well, you could also go with a "vouch" system. Potential members would have to have another member "vouch" for them to gain membership. But, obviously this fails if your forum has a very general format. Likewise, unscrupulous, malicious, evil users could work together to foul you up. :evil:
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Buddha443556
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Post by Buddha443556 »

Democracy Ban - can't get back in until a majority forgives you.
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Post by Grim... »

These are all good ideas, but actually banning someone is the difficult bit.
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Crashin
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Post by Crashin »

Buddha443556 wrote:Democracy Ban - can't get back in until a majority forgives you.
That is, unless you're in the US. Then, the will of the majority may or may not matter. :lol:
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Buddha443556
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Post by Buddha443556 »

Grim... wrote:These are all good ideas, but actually banning someone is the difficult bit.
True. I think some of that is related to how most BBs are run. Membership is open to the public. Most BBs have guest who can't post and members who can post. There's no in between.

I'm working on a comment system at the moment that has several different user groups.

Guest - Unregistered users. They have the following privileges - View Comments: No, Post Comments: YES, Auto-Publish Posted Comments: No.

Visitor - Registered user without verified email addresses. They have the following privileges - View Published Comments: Yes, Post Comments: Yes, Auto-Publish Posted Comments: No.

Prospect - Registered user with verified email addresses. They have the following privileges - View Published Comments: Yes, Post Comments: Yes, Auto-Publish Posted Comments: No. Eligible for Probation.

Probate - Prospect who has been promoted. They have the following privileges -View Published Comments: Yes, Post Comments: Yes, Auto-Publish Posted Comments: Yes. Eligible for Membership.

Member - Probate who has been promoted. They have the following privileges - View All Comments: Yes, Post Comments: Yes, Auto-Publish Posted Comments: Yes, Publish Others Comments: Yes.

It's a moderated system in which membership is a privileges. If someone screws up they can be demoted ... sometimes several times before banning even needs to be considered. Anyway it gives the administrator another option besides banning.

Can't wait to see if it works. :)
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Crashin
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Post by Crashin »

Buddha443556 wrote:It's a moderated system in which membership is a privileges. If someone screws up they can be demoted ... sometimes several times before banning even needs to be considered. Anyway it gives the administrator another option besides banning.
So, you're basically discouraging abuse through a developed relationship. I like it! And, abuse can't be up front due to the restrictions. Only serious members are going to do the time to become a "live" poster.

Nice! :D
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Post by Grim... »

But what happens when your website suddely gets really popular and in the morning there are 10,000 now messages to moderate?
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Buddha443556
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Post by Buddha443556 »

When it gets that popular hopefully there would be enough members to do the moderation or it's the members or probates doing all that commenting. Members do the moderation and also see all the posts anyway. There's no incentize for the average surfer to even to leave a comment because they won't see it posted. Even visitors and prospects have to wait for moderation. The system may not only discourage abuse but also discourage frivolous comments. User above prespect have to be promoted and to be promoted they're judged by their comments.

I've been thinking how I could expand this comment system into a fullfledged forum. I would probably add another user group (Moderator) above member to moderate just proposed topics. I would also limit the proposal of topics to members and up. Hopefully this would promote the proposal of substantial topics.

I wonder how much more difficult it would be to developing such a community compared to your average open forum?

Thankfully, you don't just wake up one day to 10000 visitor comments.
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